Promised Land
by agelade
Summary: Two weeks after the sky is filled with falling stars, Sam and Dean cope with the emotional fallout of the events in the church. Post Season 8 finale - spoilers for pretty much everything up to there to be safe.


Promised Land

A _Supernatural _Story

Dean knocks on Sam's door before entering. He's got a tray of something hot in his hands, soup this time, some crackers. It's been two weeks since the angels fell - Sam says. Dean has another name for that night, because it's not that he doesn't care about the angels - well. Actually, it is. But they haven't found Cas yet and Sam is worried. But _the night the angels fell_ is not the way Dean thinks of it. _The night I almost lost Sam_ is what circles around his head.

And the glow is gone from him, that's the other thing Dean tells himself. It isn't that Sam is still steadily growing worse after not completing the trials, or that he seems to have lost some of the spark that had been keeping him going over the last few months. It's that the trial juice has worn off and taken that orange glow with it.

"Hey Sammy," Dean says.

Sam's bandaged hand lays palm up near his head on the pillow, fingers curled over that filmy, rusty gauze. He moves his head and blinks up at Dean. A moment later, he's pushing himself backward so he can sit up. Dean rushes to set the tray down and help him.

Sam lets him, and that's worrying.

"How you feeling?"

Sam heaves a breath that hitches on the way out. He winces and clutches at one shoulder. "Okay. Not worse."

"Would you go so far as to say... 'better?'"

Sam laughs. "Maybe. A little."

"How's the hand?" He takes it, and again, Sam lets him. Sam's hand is listless under Dean's fingers.

"Still bleeding," Sam says. Sam is gazing at his hand in Dean's dispassionately, like it's not a part of him. Dean frowns and pulls away the gauze.

Dean sees that it's true; the gash that was supposed to be Crowley's final cure hasn't stopped bleeding since that night. He wraps a new bandage around the wound and then retrieves the tray he's set aside and settles it over Sam's lap. Sam looks at it disdainfully. Dean ignores this and looks around the room. "Man, you need to get on this. We've been here for months and it looks like no one lives here."

Sam smiles with half his mouth. "I don't … _own_ anything, Dean."

"Come on, you think I do? That's what shopping is for!"

Sam is shaking his head. "I lived in a house with Amelia for months too. When I - left her, everything I owned still fit into a backpack." He shrugs. "I just don't..."

Dean nods like he knows how Sam is going to finish the sentence. And he does. But Sam assumes he knows Dean; Sam assumes Dean _doesn't_ know him. When Dean turns his gaze to Sam next, it's with steel, and he ignores Sam's brief flash of panic, and he says: "You never planned to stay here, did you."

"You think I was gonna try to leave again? Dean, I've tried to leave hunting too many times and failed to ever try again."

"That's not what I meant."

Sam watches him, brow knitted, and Dean sees hope there for a moment, hope that Dean isn't saying what he thinks Dean's saying. And oh he knows his little brother better than Sam thought he did. And Sam realizes it a moment later, and suddenly he is looking anywhere else in order to not have to confirm what Dean is suggesting.

Dean leans forward. "You never intended to _live_ here."

And Dean feels terrible, because Sam closes his eyes and shrinks backward and his face is wet and _it's true_ and it just can't be true.

"Dean-" But he can't go on.

And Dean can't go on.

So Dean tries to draw attention to the soup, because it's food, and he knows food, or at least, he's comfortable with food.

But Sam sees that coming a mile away and he looks over Dean's shoulder and he says: "I should have finished it."

"The soup?"

Sam gives him a look. "I should have finished it. It's the only thing in my life that I've ever been really, really sure of."

"You weren't sure about Lucifer? Man, I never would have approved that plan if-"

But Sam is staring right at him now, and Dean feels like shit suddenly for mentioning _Lucifer _to a man who is already so threadbare Dean could almost see through him. In apology, Dean sits on the edge of the bed, near Sam's knees, and he waits. Because he owes him that much. Space in which to breathe.

Sam is a ghost when he says: "I have never done anything without your approval, not since I started it all. So no. I wasn't sure."

Dean frowns. _Started it all_ had to mean _Apocalypse_. Going off with Ruby - had that been the last time Sam had acted on a major decision of his own, without at least consulting Dean? He didn't know. He hadn't been paying attention.

Sam sighs. "I was afraid of myself. I've _been_ afraid of myself since I was a kid, even when I didn't know what was wrong with me. But this. It would have... " He shakes his head and when he looks up at Dean, he is that skeleton of a man Dean practically carried from the church two weeks before. He had been a feather, tied by ribbon thread to a weight of guilt and pain a ton deep, and Dean bore it because it was all he could do. "I could have ended it. But I just did what you told me to. _Again_. Someone else in control, again. And why do you want me to live so much, Dean? Don't you understand that I don't want to be here? That I'm... I'm miserable, and an instrument of chaos everywhere I go, and that you are weaker with me around? You shouldn't have stopped me. Death is... Death is nothing. I've been through worse. I'd - I'd die and I'd just - wait for you. And it'd be over for me. _Finally_." His mouth when he says _finally_ like a plea, and his eyebrows so high in his face like when he'd confessed that the trials could purify him, the hope they bouyed up, the joy they reached for - it's too much.

Dean stares. His eyes water. He dabs at them hastily, and he feels the flush of embarrassment when Sam notices and shakes his head. Dammit.

"Sammy... This." He spreads his hands to signify the whole everything Sam has just laid down. "This is too much. Hearing you want to _die_? What am I supposed to say to that? I don't want you to die. It's that simple. It's not about heaven to me, okay? It's about... having to somehow go on down here without you. I just don't want to do that. I tried once, okay, and-"

"And it worked. I saw you with Lisa. You were happy-"

"I was a wreck, Sam," Dean says. He has to pull every punch; if Sam had been well, they'd be wrestling on the floor by now, or dodging blows, or at least yelling loudly. "I loved her, and Ben. Yes. But maybe you didn't stick around after your little visit to see the paranoia, and the constant vigilance. I was a hazard to that family."

Sam stares at the blanket. "But you were happy. The paranoia would have worn off."

"So what do you want to do now?" Dean says after a moment.

Sam shrugs. "I don't know. I meant everything I said in the church. I still mean it. I don't think we can go on like we have been."

"Aw come on!" Dean grumbles. "Are you kidding me with this? What else do I have to say, Sam?"

"I don't know, Dean. You said it all in the church. I don't want to be the underfoot little brother you have to sacrifice all your friends to save. Not Benny or - or anyone. You _deserve_ to have friends, and all I ever do is be the reason you can't have them. I don't want to be that reason. And I don't want to be the reason you let the monsters who have killed our family over all of these years go free." He shrugs. "I'm just - I'm done with that. It's taken me five years to come to terms with it, to really understand why I was so angry all the time, but - I think you covered it in the church."

Dean blinks. "What the hell are you talking about, five years? Forget about what I said in the church. I was just trying to get you to put the gun down, Sam. Honestly, I wasn't even thinking about what came out of my mouth, just _make sure he doesn't die_, over and over. I'm _sorry_ if that wasn't reassuring enough for you, or addressed your concerns."

"I didn't need you to address my concerns," Sam says. He's staring at nothing, and Dean realizes he needs to tread carefully again - and it's hard, because he loves the hell out of Sam, but he isn't a _tread carefully_ guy.

"What's five years ago?" he says.

"What?"

"You said, it took you five years to figure this out. Is that when this whole... one-person-suicide-pact started?"

Sam draws his brows together and he looks so lost suddenly, and Dean wants to take it back, but he can't. Sam nods. "I guess so. Maybe. The beginning of the end, anyway."

"Explain." Dean rolls his eyes just a little and adds, "If you want to. Whatever you want."

Sam laughs a little at that, because he sees Dean is trying, and it's not as much of a relief as Dean thought hearing him laugh again would be. And without warning, Sam quiets again, and his eyes fill with some memory, and Dean wants to pull him to his chest and tell him not to say anything if it will break him, not to say anything if it will cause him pain, because he's going to convince Sam to live again if it's the last thing he does.

That, he thinks, Sam would laugh at.

"That night I left - to kill Lilith."

Dean frowns. "Oh."

"Just before we went inside that convent, I got your... I got your message."

"I didn't think you got that one-"

"I did."

"I admit I was hoping you hadn't gotten it, Sammy." Because if he _hadn't_ gotten the message Dean left, it meant it wasn't that Sam didn't _care_ that Dean tried to stop him or that Dean was trying to apologize. It just meant that Sam... didn't get the voicemail in time. But Sam had gotten it, and Dean's heart drops into his stomach because that meant Sam got it, and just didn't _care_, but he's going to let it go, because Sam is coming clean about this whole not wanting to live anymore thing, and Dean isn't stopping that train just to pitch a fit.

"Well I did," Sam bites out. "And I saved it. And anytime I got really low - I mean really... low. I listened to it. I listened to your voice in that message, and I-"

He breaks off, but Dean can't help but be moved. In times of trouble, Sammy pulled out his phone and listened to a message of apology from his big brother, a voice telling him they'd figure it out together, or - whatever he'd said. He hadn't realized he'd made such an impact. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, but Sam continues.

"And when things were... things were good. When things were going well, between us, for us. When I felt good, really good. When I felt like I was doing something … really right. I listened to it. Over and over." His eyes are filling again, and Dean is suddenly frowning, suddenly on guard, because this isn't right. It doesn't _feel_ right. "To remind myself, that no matter what I think I'm doing, I can't make up for what I've done, and I can't be counted on, and I can't … be trusted to tell right from wrong."

Dean is windswept on a plain of nothingness and glassy sand, gutted and rudderless. He has to force himself to breathe.

"I listen to it, again and again, to remind myself who I really am. What I really deserve."

"Sam," Dean chokes out, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't, Dean-"

"Listen, I don't remember it that well. We had other shit going on, but I'm pretty sure all I said was that I was sorry I said what I said, that was it, I swear."

Sam closes his eyes and tears spill. "Don't lie to me, Dean. I deserve better than that, at least."

"No - no way. Where's that goddamned phone-" Dean attacks Sam's meagre belongings, ignoring Sam's mild protests. When he finds the phone, he hands it to Sam. "Voicemail, now." Sam presses buttons, then hands it back to Dean, his mouth tight and bitter.

Dean takes the phone and presses it to his ear. He hears his own voice: "_Listen to me you blood-sucking freak_-" And he gets up from the bed and walks away because he can tell the words are bleeding out into the room by the way Sam flinches. But he glances over as the rest of the message plays and he catches Sam staring into the near distance, mouthing along with the poisonous words as his eyes fill again.

_You're a monster, Sam, a vampire-_

The phone drops from his ear long seconds after the message has ended. Dean's watching Sam. Sam is staring at nothing. He grips the blanket with white hands.

"Sam... Sam, I didn't leave this message. I didn't, you gotta believe me. I would never say this to you-"

Sam looks up at him then, and there's something burned into his face. "Yes you would. You did." He jabs his finger at the phone in Dean's hand. "You said it. With every look, every word-" He breaks off suddenly, pulls on the blanket like he needs a life preserver. His knees draw up and bang into the tray of soup and Sam is doubling over.

Dean rushes to the bed and is quick to get the tray out from between them. Sam is struggling to breathe, and his eyes are screwed up in agony, and Dean talks him through the pain. Sam clings to both of his arms and his head is burrowed into Dean's chest.

When this bout is over, it is a full three minutes later. Dean lays him back onto the pillow as gingerly as he thinks he can. Sam isn't helping; he is spent from it. Dean murmurs something about a glass of water, but Sam says, "I'm not done talking about this."

"What, now? Sam, that was a bad one. Can't this wait?"

Sam manages - how, Dean can't fathom - to give him that look. It's a pitiful shadow of Sam's usual _are you fucking kidding me?_ expression, but it still works pretty well. So Dean sighs and turns back and puts a hand on his brother's knee.

"What more can I say, Sam? I didn't leave you that voicemail. You left the motel and I called Bobby, all pissed. And Bobby set me straight, made me realize what an idiot I was, and - I called you as soon as I could, to _apologize_, for acting like Dad, when I knew full well what those words would mean for you. It was a dick move, and I knew it, and I just didn't want you to go off thinking I-"

"How am I supposed to believe you, Dean? You're holding the evidence in your hand."

Dean shrugs. "I don't know. But you gotta. You gotta believe me. Because if this-" He shakes the phone in the air like it had insulted his great aunt Betty. "If _this_ is what you've been using to get to sleep at night, we have a serious problem."

Sam looks incredulous. "I'll say we do. _You_. You've slipped a gear, man."

"I'm telling you I didn't leave you this message-! Oh goddammit. Angel _fucking_ bastards. They were keeping me from you that whole time. They _knew_ about Lilith-"

Sam frowns. "So did Ruby. Either of them could have-" And he goes gray, and his mouth opens, and he tilts his head, and he realizes - he was tricked. Again. "Oh." His hands are shaking, and Dean leans forward to cover them with his own. Sam's faith, shattered again, his trust abused again - goddammit.

"It's okay. It's okay. We just - we just move forward from here. I didn't say this-" Dean waggles the cursed phone in Sam's view. "But it wasn't too hard for you to believe I did, was it? That means this is on me, okay? This is on me, totally. I screwed up bad if you could believe for five years - for five _seconds_ - that I would leave you this voicemail."

Sam is watching him from deep within the pillow where Dean has pressed him after that latest attack of the trial jitters, and his hair is damped onto his forehead, and his eyes are clouded with memory and betrayal, and his mouth is trembling, and he begins to shake his head.

Dean understands this to mean _I no longer have any idea what my life is, I have no idea anymore how to make a choice or trust a person, if I ever did._

"Come on, Sam," Dean says, and he shakes his shoulder until Sam looks at him, really looks at him. Until he nods in acknowledgement. "Sam. I'm gonna say some stuff to you that isn't going to leave this room, okay?"

Another nod.

"Sam, you are good. The best. The most selfless. Everything you've done, you've intended for good. I've said it before, but I'll say it now - neither of us knew what the deal was with Lilith. If I'd had the power to do it, you better believe I'd have gone ahead and done it, and you know what? You'd _still _have made the choice to jump into that cage to save everyone. Because that's who you are. No matter who had ganked that bitch, you'd have been the one to save everyone. Know why?"

Sam shakes his head and watches Dean like whatever he says is going to make or break him.

"That's because no matter what your damned 'destiny' is, you're still _Sam_, one of the good guys. Jumping into the pit? That wasn't redemption for you man, because you didn't need to be redeemed. You know that. Right? Nod for me."

Sam nods.

"I know I can get really angry, but I _never_ hate you. I could never hate you. And I'm so, so proud of you. All the time. All the friggin' time. The things you've done, not just in the last month, but your whole life. The things you do for people you don't even _know_. I used to be jealous of it, that kind of pure... goodness. But I mostly just admired it."

Sam nods again, but then he blinks and he's watching Dean's face, peering into it for something. "You're just saying what you think I want to hear."

Dean makes a face. "I just bared my freakin' soul to you, man."

"You're just saying whatever you have to again, just like in the Church. Whatever barely positive things that come to mind."

"How can - Dude." Dean laughs. It surprises them both. And he laughs again, and he grabs Sam by the front of his shirt and he pulls him out of the pillows and he crushes him to his chest, and he can tell Sam's having a hard time breathing through it but he can just _deal_ for five seconds, because there is no way - and through the broken sentences and half thoughts that follow, Dean can't let him go, can't let him breathe, can't let him be numb to the desperate panic Dean feels at even the mention of Sam's possible death.

"If I had ten years to talk about how good you are," he says into Sam's hair, "I still couldn't get it all out, Sammy. You are such an idiot, and you are a headstrong little shit sometimes, but don't you ever think - 'whatever barely positive things?' You little friggin' - you absolute little- You know I suck at this. You gotta go easy on me." He pushes Sam away from him to a) let him breathe again, and b) look into his face and dare him to say _one more time_ that Dean doesn't mean everything he's saying.

Sam has a tentative kind of smile on his face, a little confused, a little unsure. And Dean tries to remember that he's just really unsure about everything in his life right now, and he might even be questioning his ability to trust _Dean_, and that's a problem for another time.

"You gotta go easy on me, kid," Dean says again. "I'm not good at this. That's why we're where we are. But whatever I sound like with all this … lady-movie stuff. You gotta believe it's all true. We can't move forward until you give me at least that."

Sam's little smile fades, and he hesitates, but he nods after a moment. All the energy in him is gone. He falls backward into the pillows again. "There's so much I want to explain..." He sounds drunk. Dean can tell he's going to be out for the count soon.

Dean smiles. "Okay. We can do that. Not right now, okay? Because that was a bad one, and I'm on asprin and water duty. But you're going to eat this damned soup and take another nap, and we can have another of these chick flick things. Whatever you want."

Sam nods.

"Goddammit Sammy," Dean says then. He's picking at Sam's blanket and smoothing it over his chest and patting it down around his torso. "I failed you so bad. I'm sorry, man. I'm so sorry."

But he looks up and Sam is asleep, ridiculous hair spread across the pillow, rust bandaged hand near his head. His eyes are barely closed. Dean can see the color of them through the lashes, and he brushes his hand over them to close them completely, and he is seized by a cold stone in his stomach at the motion. If Cas hadn't taxied him the way he'd demanded. If Sam hadn't handed over his choices to Dean, again, if he had decided to _stop _handing them over in order to perform his last living act. If Dean had been half a second later.

He'd have come in kicking the door down and yelling for Sam. He'd have found a quiet, still sanctuary. Crowley blinking dumbly, mortal and cured and bound. Sam on the floor, staring at nothing, but at peace for once. And Dean would have had to take those steps heavy, and he'd have knelt sobbing, and he'd have brushed his hand over his brother's eyes.

To let him sleep.


End file.
